Derailed

Two bad movies for the price of one: a grim, depressing drama that turns into a dopey, thrill-less thriller. Clive Owen stars as a harried homeowner with a frustrating job and a daughter in dialysis. But his already unhappy life takes a turn for the worse when he meets a sexy banker (Jennifer Aniston) on his train commute; they fall in lust, go to a hotel and are interrupted by a thief (Vincent Cassel) who rapes Aniston and robs them both. Neither can tell their respective spouses, of course, but when the thief uses this to his advantage and extorts large sums of money, it's to the agony of Owen, who's been saving for his daughter's treatment. There's no real reason to watch the first movie, which makes light of fairly disturbing subject matter and leaves you in a big, ugly funk, but it's at least got the courage of its dour convictions and leaves you wondering where it's going to go. Little do you realise that it's going to go nowhere: just when you think nothing can get worse, the film introduces one of those predictable "twist" endings that invalidates everything that comes before. Whereas before you were merely unhappy and distressed, now you've had the rug pulled out from under you, and a movie that was formerly just a failure becomes an infuriating exercise in Hollywood cop-outs. True, Aniston surprises in a rare non-sweetheart role, and Cassel has fun trying on new accents as he ludicrously changes identities, but in the end nothing can stop this movie from being a big waste of time in more ways than one. The only extras: three deleted scenes and a perfunctory "making of" clip. (Alliance Atlantis)